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Saturday, November 7, 2009

Six Minutes To Success

Bob Proctor is one of the leading experts in the field of Self Help information today. In his twenties he was given a copy of Napoleon Hill's masterpiece: Think & Grow Rich. He took the book as truth and opened a cleaning business. Within a few years he had offices if five major cities and was a self-made millionaire. As promised. From there Bob actually left his own company to study under radio talkshow legend Earl Nightingale - the leading self-help authority of his day.

Bob has now been teaching self-help material for over 40 years. He was featured prominantly in the hit movie 'The Secret' and the book based on it. He's the white haired gentleman who initially tells you what 'The Secret' is.

Bob was written books (Born Rich), and created many audio and video programs over the years.

Six Minutes to Success is one of his latest endevours and one of the most original.
Unlike most self-help programs which are finite, either a weekend retreat or a six disk program for example, Six Minutes to Success is an ongoing, daily fix of self-help information.

It is elegant in it's simplicity. You receive a video clip and exercise from Bob Proctor every weekday morning based on a topic of the day which will take about six minutes to complete.

The Full Half

The Daily Dose

The idea is an intreging one because one of the hardest things to do is be consistant day in and day out over a long period of time. People instead tend to get motivated, start off good and then dwindle off down the line. So anything that helps us to stay motivated is definitely valuable.

This is one perk Six Minutes has compared to anything else on the market. Other programs whether they be a weekend seminar or a set of audio tapes tend to just add to the tendacy to start strong and then fade away. While Six Minutes isn't going to get you going in a hurry (at least not the daily videos) it doesn't leave you alone to revert back to old behaviour either. Instead it's there every morning to encourage you along.

Freshness

I have been using Six Minutes for months now and I must give Bob Proctor credit, I don't believe he's repeated an idea once in all this time. Every day it's been a fresh bit of advice, suggestion or technique.

Bonus!

The bonus material is awesome! An advantage of having been at this for such a long time Bob was easily able to pull audio clips and .pdf material from earlier works to include free with Six Minutes. There is a wealth of bonus material. Hours of audio recordings, a full e-book (Born Rich) and a variety of other .pdf readings.

This is a huge benefit for it makes up were the daily videos lack, by allowing Bob the breathe and length to engage you in deeper concepts. The fact that these are all immediately available to you is truly awesome as the value is far greater than the cost of trying the program out. All of the material is great with awesome advice on a number of topics in the audio clips and a rock solid book in Born Rich.

Archives

Not only do you get to see Proctor's smiling face and pleasing manner every day but it's kept for prosperity! You can at any point go back at watch an earlier video, whether it was days, weeks or even months ago. That means, I now have hours of Bob Proctor available to me to watch whenever I want. This is also particularly handy if a message really gave you an 'Aha!' moment, as we tend to forget and need a refresher.

Free Trial

There are a couple of videos to give you a feel of the service right on the initial website and then you have an opportunity to try it out, risk free, for seven days. That's a great way to introduce people to the concept and allow them to get the feel of the benefits it can provide. There's some excellent information in those trial videos and I strongly encourage you so sign up for them if nothing else.

Less Than a Cup of Coffee a Day

Personally I hate the 'less than a cup of coffee' thing, partly because I'm not willing to forgo a cup of coffee so I can afford something else and in part because that means the item in question is still $35-50 a month which is not insignificant to most people.

Having said that, it's still a whole lot less expensive than many other ways to get the same type of information. A typical weekend seminar can easily cost into the thousands of dollars (years worth of Six Minutes). Even just a few hours listening to many speakers can cost you a few hundred dollars. Most audio/video programs also cost far in excess of what even a yearly subcription to Six Minutes will.

Now a book or a copy of the movie 'The Secret' would be an even smaller investment (and well worthwhile!) but I know many of my friends can't be bothered to read and there's only so much you can gleam from watching The Secret. With Six Minutes To Success the amount of knowledge is potentially endless (at a corresponding potentially endless cost I suppose) and accessible to anyone no matter how short their attention span.

There's Strentgh in Numbers (and Profit!)

If the cost is in any way hindering you from otherwise utilizing this service take heart. Bob Proctor does include a repriprocal program in Six Minutes. For each friend of yours who signs up, your costs are reduced all the way down to zero (and beyond). It's always a good idea to sign up for a program like this with a friend (preferrably at the same time) as that gives you a chance to discuss each day's lesson with someone. It also gives you valuable feedback on how it may apply to you. You may not think you need to do 'x' in your life but your friend may have a totally different view. A friend also helps to keep you accountable. A accountability partner gives you extra incentive to actually utilize the techniques taught instead of just letting them go in one ear and out the other. The fact that your friend will actually save you a few dollars is just an added bonus.

The Empty Half

Times Up!

The biggest disappointment is the actual length of the daily videos. You would think with a name like Six Minutes the videos would be six minutes long. The initial ones you recieve are, adding to this illusion but once you actually start using the program in earnest you discover the daily video is a mere two minutes (with rare exceptions).

To be fair, that's because part of the Six Minutes is intended for you to use to do the exercises. However most days exercises can be breezed through fairly quickly (and occasionally an exercise hardly even seems worthwhile based on the topic) however, other days you may find yourself spending twenty minutes on the exercise as your really forced to think about your life at a level you may not be used to.

Regardless, two minutes has always seemed a little too short to me. Recently I've been using Gary Ryan Blair's 100 Day Challenge which also sends a daily video/audio message (for 100 days natch) and those are six minutes long. After listening to Blair's messages for 40+ days I'm now of the opinion six minutes is too long. Three to four minutes would probably be the ideal in both cases.

While Bob has always been able to articulate the idea of the day in those two minutes (and occasionally goes longer when he can't) it still seems like an artificial limitation that prevents him from ever getting into any real depth on any subject. Of course, this isn't meant to be deep and there's plenty of depth in the free bonus material.

Discontinuality

Every day it's a new message with a new idea. Although you do get some ongoing themes (seven positive emotions - one a day for seven days), never have Six Minutes built on what has come before. You could watch the videos in any order to the same effect. One could argue the benefits of that, such as being able to skip a day without missing anything important, but I have always felt this was a massive missed opportunity.

The effect of this is that Six Minutes is effectively more of a video version of those daily 'inspiration of the day' calendars than it is an educational tool. There's merit in that, as mentioned above but if they did build on the previous days lesson or message it would allow Proctor to get into much deeper and more meaningful topics. As it is, each topic only ever gets the two to four minutes the original video allows.

Used Car Salesmanship

I love Bob. I do. Really. The man really knows his stuff and he presents himself in such a fun and energenic way, especially for an older gentleman. However, why he insists on using such base used car salesmanship in his website is beyond me. I suppose it must work for him but to me personnal it really detracts from his proffesionalism. The initial website is also pretty basic and frankly looks cheap and amatuerish. He should really take a little bit of those millions he earns to invest in a proffesionally designed site.

In the end the website is nothing more than a front door and you will forget all about it once you start the program but you know what they say about first impressions. He really does himself a disservice by overselling himself and not using current technology give the site a more proffesional image.

Trust Factor

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting Bob Proctor isn't trust-worthy, not at all. However, I'm sure he loses a lot of business by asking for your credit card information prior to starting your free trial period. If the trial is free why do you need my credit information? It causes one to wonder if the service is not some scam where trying to cancel to avoid being charged is ridiculously difficult. In fact, that is not the case. They clearly inform you of when your trial is over and you have ample chance to stop the service if you wish not to continue past the trial period. However Bob and they customer would be much better served if they weren't asked to give their precious credit information until they had been sold on the program in the first place.

Something Borrowed, Something Blew

Right off the bat Bob Proctor takes a lot of his material straight out of Napoleon Hill's 'Think & Grow Rich'. Now Think & Grow Rich is one of the best works ever and if you haven't read it, order it right now!! I'm serious. It's one of the best investments you'll ever make. Go buy it from your local bookstore, if you prefer, but buy that book! Digressing, Bob takes from it liberally and while it's a worthwhile source, I've read it repeatedly. Worse is that this is a practise he continues sporatically throughout Six Minutes. Borrowing from this book or that book throughout.

There's nothing wrong with referring or borrowing from a noteable work but I would prefer he just did it for a day or two and otherwise suggested you buy the book yourself. Which he has done on occasion and I've picked up a couple immensefully helpful works because of it. However, that may just be me. I'm sure there's a lot of people who like this service because they prefer NOT to read and those people will probably likely really appreciate this approach.

Final Thoughts

Six Minutes to Success is not for everyone. Unless you're serious about making a difference in your life there's little you will get out of this program (although a daily dose of inspiration sure couldn't hurt). However that goes for anything out there. It doesn't work unless you commit yourself to using it.

Nor is this program ideal for people who are already highly committed, unless you feel the need for an extra little push each morning. For those already determined to take their life to the higher level I'd recommend the 100 Days to Success program as it's more in your face and focused.

Six Minutes is great for the casual person who wants to do more with their life and is looking for something to inspire them but hasn't gotten to the point where they're tearing through every source out there looking for answers. Six Minutes is a nice bridge between the two and likely one of those daily messages will really strike a cord with you causing an aphiphany that could change your life. What and when that would be could be different for every person.

Regardless of which group you fall into, the bonus material included is absolutely top notch and should not be missed. It's retail value far exceeds the cost of one month of service, in fact it probably exceeds the cost of an entire year. Signing up for a month to access all the audio tapes, the e-book, other bonus material plus a months worth of Six Minutes daily videos is a complete no-brainer. If Bob Proctor or the concept behind Six Minutes appeals to you to any degree you own it to yourself to take it for a spin.